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from $ Maker 12″ (White Label, 198?)
We’re back again with another local legend. Richmond’s Calvin T gained rep alongside his rhyme partner Magic Mike. The duo were the closest peers to Too Short as far as underground, out-the-trunk Bay Area rappers in the early to mid 80s, but drugs and prison time prevented them from ever achieving the same long term national successes that Short has seen. Still most Bay of the rappers that followed acknowledge their impact and you can definitely hear their influence, particularly on Vallejo artists like E-40 and Mac Dre. This 1997 Murder Dog interview tells his story. (more…)
DJ Quik & Kurupt – “Do You Know”
from Blaqkout (Mad Science, Available June 9)
Early leaks from the anticipated (by some) Blaqkout have seen Quik stepping out of his traditional genius music summertime slaps mold to take a more eclectic approach. Because he’s an artist, not a gangsta, remember. (For those keeping score: “9X Outta Ten” was a successful experiment, in a Prefuse 73x”Grindin” way, but the twooutta three that followed weren’t as effective. Maybe he should stay out of the world music crates.) Well “Do You Know” is more what you’d expect from the duo, on the laid back top down tip. These are the types of beats Quik should be lacing Kurupt with, but if the LP splits down the middle between styles it’ll probably be enough of a success to be better than most summer albums.
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Gibbs is from Gary, Indiana and we all have been sleeping on him for too long. The Interscope refugee seemingly salvaged a bunch of tracks from his aborted major label debut for this, yet another album-as-mixtape track. Gibbs is a spitter from the Twista school, but seems to draw on more of a southern demeanor. Hopefully one of these A&Rs ODing on overpriced t-shirts will take note and pick him up again. It would be a shame to see him get Ray Cashed. I’m thinking “Stray” is some Waitin To Inhale era Devin, given the Pitchfork parental advisory warning levels of women hating on the hook “Stray” was on Devin’s Landing Gear but sounds a lot better here: “I can’t stand stupid bitches.” Pretty to the point. (more…)
Uh Sundays. Yeah this was supposed to go up yesterday. Long weekend. Deal with it.
This is a promo one sheet from E-40′s classic “Practice Lookin Hard.” For those unfamiliar, E-40 is “the undisputed don of mountain mobster music, possessing a rap style not unlike Woody Woodpecker with a head fulluv bhudda.” And a Pearl Jam namedrop in 1994 is roughly the equivalent to a Coldplay cosignature today, no?
“Practice” video is painfully unembedabble. Fuck Zomba, I sell nose candy Willy Wonka.
Does this series work for people? I know I’m a few days or even weeks late on some of these joints, and probably costing myself some oh so valuable page impressions by not making these separate updates, but this approach makes it a lot easier to organize my thoughts and make sure I am getting you records that are actually good or at least significant. I can go back to the one post per song frantic Nah Right pace if that’s preferred. But I probably won’t.
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Spinning off last nights jerkin’ post [||] here some real grown rappers jump on one of the scene’s early inspirations. Hyphy may have officially lost its way when so many of its principles decided to cues from Atlanta on their signature singles. Suddenly it was high energy crunk, low fi snap, strip club bass anything but the synth madness Rick Rock freak outs that the bay fell in love with. “No Hoe” side steps such distinctions by basically being all of these things at once. According to the email it was attached to it clocks in at 100 BPM (I’ll take their word for it, I forgot how to count beats around the same time being a DJ became a less relevant pursuit than being a janitor) but it’s so spacious it seems like it is crawling. Also some of the rapping is close to excellent. (more…)
